A single statistic encapsulates the severity of noma disease: an 80–90% mortality rate among untreated cases, making it one of the most lethal infections affecting children globally. Yet this deadly oral infection remained absent from the World Health Organization’s official neglected tropical disease surveillance list until 2023—more than a century after its first medical documentation. New epidemiological mapping across Nigeria is now revealing the true scale of disease burden in one of Africa’s most affected regions, where cases cluster among children under five living in conditions of extreme poverty, malnutrition, and limited healthcare access. The delayed formal recognition has consequences: without comprehensive surveillance data, public health systems lack the evidence needed to allocate resources for prevention and early treatment. Experts stress that addressing this data gap is the first step toward preventing unnecessary childhood mortality.
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